Penn Satire, Since 1899

Career Guide

by Matt Fox

Hey gang, Matt Fox again! As graduation approaches for some and unpaid internships beckon for others, it becomes buzz-killingly evident that the time to start honing personal misrepresentations for the sake of gainful employment is fast approaching. So grab some herbal de-tox tea, break out your cover letter and power suit, and let’s begin career building!

Use power words in your resume: a well-placed power word is like a euphemistic land-mine in the desert of your previous job experience. Constructed, initiated, oversaw, brutalized, emulsified, aroused, enslaved, defenestrated, and organized are all great lexis to offset the typically proximal phrases “work-study assistant” and “clerical duties.”

Start networking smarter by networking drunker. Apparently social drinkers are better networkers, and therefore potentially poised to be more successful in their careers. Why wait until happy hour to climb the occupational ladder? Spike your morning coffee, take a flask to your seminar. Turn that downward spiral into upward mobility!

Secure a letter of recommendation. Before you sleep with the instructor writing it, ideally. Encourage use of power words!

Get leadership experience. From now on, start referring to your friends collectively as a “team,” and boss them around. Be sure to criticize constructively! Give it a few weeks and you’ll have plenty of viable anecdotes for those pressing interview questions about delegation experience and conflict resolution.

Destroy any online evidence that you went to college. Unless you can argue why that bong hit frozen in time on MySpace.com is proof of outside-the-box thinking, delete it. More often than not employers prefer their employees to be young, brilliant, and not devastatingly consistent at flashing ‘the shocker’ in group photos.

Every expression you make in an interview is scrutinized, so practice your body language. Stand in front of a mirror, repeat your career goals for the next 5 years over and over. Give good, meaningful eye contact. Good, good. Now strip down. Nice. Now explain what you feel is your biggest personal weakness. Oh wow, that’s hot. Yeah you’ll be promoted for sure. Spank me.

To be honest, I’m in Nursing and the current job market doesn’t necessitate that I really worry about any of this. So I guess lastly apply to grad school. Just in case the whole…you know, liberal arts thing doesn’t pan out right away.